GameBlurb: Do Games Need Multiplayer To Be Sucessful?

When Dead Space 2 recently announced a multiplayer component to the game, I had to sit down and think, “Is it really necessary?” Dead Space was perfectly fine as a solitary experience and I never did once think it needed a mode where I could play with my friends. But these days more developers have felt that a game must be shipped with some sort of mode where you can interact with other human beings in order for it to be worth something to a consumers’ eyes. I think not.

I like the single player element of a game more than multi. Maybe its because I started gaming back when the 2600 came out. Back then gaming was about an entertaining single player experience more than a competitive multiplayer bitchfest.

...and love single player and it's the core of most games for me I do enjoy cooperative story driven game play quite a bit. However I don't think every game needs multiplayer, more often than not it does seems like the single player mode is tacked on to the multiplayer for some games which genuinely isn't cool to me.

I think this is the mindset of most 360 gamers out there and have been getting worst every year! they have to pay for Gold thus games with no MP simply go way down their priority or completely being overlooked. I bet this is one of the reason some games even the one that they hyped to the sky like Alan Wake didn't sell so well because many gold subscribers don't think that these games are making their $50 a year worth it! the downfall of this mindset is publishers will start releasing short campaign games with MP like CoD, Halo ODST or simply slap MP to crap games just to attract gamers like Soldier of fortune or the latest, Lost Planet2 or will put unnecessary MP portion into games that totally don't need it like Bioshock 2 and now Dead Space 2.

some 360 fanboys over here also always singling out games like Uncharted DF, GoW3, R&C, HS just because these games don't have MP but these are great games even without the MP!

I really depends on the game, but generally I don't play multiplayer as often as I used to. Games like COD4 I would only play online and Bioshock 2 I didn't even care to try. I did play Uncharted 2 online and it was really well done, but I got my ass handed to me since I was late to the level up game.

Personally, give me an extra hour or two of well polished gameplay instead of multiplayer.

I've said it before, I've over multi player. I mean it's cool and all, but with amount of a$$hats online, it isn't worth it. Plus I usually buy a game for the single player. There are rarities like L4D and TF2, but they seriously did it right and covered it all. I don't need watered down versions.

- If you buy a competitive shooter game months after its first released, you get ur ass handed you by more experienced people

- People with no lives who practice ALL day long get first place everytime and ruin the fun for everyone else who DO have lives.

- In games like Bad Company 2 where you have to rely on your team to win, you MANY times have people on your time who literally don't know what the hell their doing. These people bring down the entire team.

The only shooters that have brought me non-stop fun and little to no frustration would be the Halo and L4D franchises. In these games, even when I lose, I still have fun.

@Raztad- Nah, competitive shooters are really fun at first, but they just get boring really quickly for me. The only shooter(hopefully) coming to the PS3 that I'm looking forward to is L4D3. I like the small team aspect of it. And instead of working AGAINST each other, ur all working to survive as a team.

deadreckoning666 said "- If you buy a competitive shooter game months after its first released, you get ur ass handed you by more experienced people "

So true! If you don't play multi from day 1, you'll never have enough experience and will get your butt handed too. Although leveling up online is a neat feature, pitting a lvl 1 vs a lvl 56 is completely unfair. And I paid for that? Pass!

-Before I get bubbled down and disagreed with for appearing to be one of those idiots who will only play a game with mp in it, read my comment first, as I clearly state that all of this is just my OPINION. I don't need MP in a game to buy and love it.

MP keeps me playing the game for a longer time though. Once I finish a campaign of a game, I never want to go back to replay it, since I already know what happens, there is no surprise.

There are those extremely RARE games that actually do make me want to play the campaign more than once, but there are too little these days. Only game I've actually enjoyed replaying (this generation) are Bioshock, inFamous, Borderlands (had co op though), and Resistance 1. Once the story is done with, that's it. Nothing else to do after beating the campaign except find collectibles and go trophy whoring, both not very fun things to do in my opinion.

Where as games like Warhawk, Bad Company 1 & 2, Killzone 2, Gears of War 1, Call of Duty 2, 4 & 5, RE5 Co op (with my friends), Socom Confrontation, Resistance 1 & 2, Burnout Paradise, Borderlands co op, WoW, and a few others have kept me going for much longer than most sp games (Fallout 3 took a huge chunk of my life away from me).

Don't get me wrong, I love SP when it's great, but that's often not the case. I want a game to leave me with great memories, and only a handful of games (this generation) have done that. With MP, I have a lot of great memories of personal accomplishments (things like getting a ridiculous kill that is nearly impossible to replicate, getting that last lucky shot against all ods that wins the game for my team, playing against my friends and getting one of those awesome kills on them and bragging to them about it and giving them sh*t for it, etc.), things that can most likely never be replicated again.

With single player, everything is already scripted out for you, and it's not really much of an accomplishment to kill an AI enemy, seeing as how they are so damn easy these days.

These are just MY experiences though, and my opinion, so don't go getting all pissed off like I'm stating my opinion as fact, because I'm not.

I prefer SP when it's downright amazing, but when it's not amazing, I prefer a fun MP match over a good, but not amazing sp playthrough (in most instances; even though Bioshock 2's SP wasn't amazing, I still prefer the sp of B2 to the mp of B2).

Multiplayer is always going to be the more addictive component of a video game - killing AI enemies simply cannot be compared to the satisfaction that comes with knowing you've killed/beaten another human being, even if they're oceans away.

Single player games with imaginative, compelling storylines will always have a place in our gaming libraries, but I think in terms of longevity, multiplayer games are always going to have the upper hand.

No, a game does not need to have multiplayer aspects in order to be successful. However, some people do enjoy that aspect of gaming. I'm not generally one of them, but just because I don't like multiplayer, doesn't mean it shouldn't exist. I do, however, feel that it gets too much attention as it is. You need to think about what makes a game fun and an enjoyable experience. Some games just don't need multiplayer. While some thrive with it.

I would much rather play a 100+ hour game like Fallout or The Elder Scrolls or Final Fantasy than 'frag' some random guy on the internet.

The majority of people on here (based on a lot of past articles), would have MP wiped off the face of the Earth if they could, having no respect for the people that do enjoy it (I do understand that it should not be in every game, and I understand peoples frustration when a game that doesn't needed is tacked on with a mp mode).

i enjoy both ( mainly singleplayer though) But one thing i can not stand is devs who make a great singleplayer for a game, then for the sequel decided to add mutliplayer and completely balls the entire game up, Bioshock 2 for example

I think that although a lot of games don't NEED multiplayer to be successful, the reality is that when games companies are expecting people to spend £40 for a game, that people want to know that they will get their money's worth from the purchase.

Take Uncharted 2 for example, an absolutely brilliant game that doesn't NEED multiplayer... but if we are honest it is over quite quickly. So to ensure some longevity in the game multiplayer is added. I just traded in Assassin's Creed 2, another good game that I thoroughly enjoyed, but that once I had finished I had no real desire to pick it back up and play it again. But knowing that AC Brotherhood has multiplayer makes it more likely that I will see the value in buying and keeping the game.

It really does just come down to whether or not the single-player experience remains as good. If they added multiplayer at the cost of single-player then it does not make sense for some kind of games. If however with games such as Uncharted 2, where you get a stellar single-player game, with the added bonus of multiplayer there if you want it... then its just win win!